ICT and Sensor Network Applications to Solve IUU and Overfishing Issues in

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business group of fishermen, but the group was used by the fishermen only as a formality for the governmental procedure and for getting the governmental support and not a community business group. Such condition is very unfortunate because fishermen already conducted the fishing habit as a community and even more effective after thy started using mobile phone. The government should support and encourage information sharing though a mobile phone utilization and conduct the training to build the capacity and know-how of fishermen in order to improve their way of managing KUB as a community business group. One example is conducting a training to conduct a cooperative business to sell the catch collectively via information sharing using ICT device (mobile phone) among KUB members so that they have a selling power, namely more stable and sustainable supply of fish for the market compared to sell the fish single handedly. Besides, it is also important for the government to organize several basic skill training other than fishing technique, such as construction work, basic fish processing technique or even small scale aquaculture, along with the basic entrepreneurship for fishermen so they can still be productive during the off season.

4.8 ICT and Sensor Network Applications to Solve IUU and Overfishing Issues in

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reduction and life improvement of small scale fishermen has been discussed above, and in this section the author provide the examination to reduce IUU and overfishing challenges in Indonesia. IUU and overfishing issues could possibly tackled by applying advanced ICT and sensor network technology through Japanese technology transference.

The ministry reported that, there is possibility of overfishing (KKP, 2014c), however, still experiencing problems in arranging database of catch and estimating fish stocks in Indonesian waters. Such condition is occurred because currently, database of fishing vessel and fish stock has not available yet in Indonesia. Under the new minister, the data gathering, database development and arrangement as well as fish stock estimation is also one of the main topics nowadays (KKP, 2014a).

IUU fishing has been one of the main problems in Indonesian fishery sector for decades. Generally said, IUU lead to maritime and fishery security complication, i.e.

domestic fishermen within the country are not well managed, so there is difficulties to distinguish domestics and foreign fishing vessels as well as to distinguish the legal and illegal one. There are currently an estimated over 5,000 illegal foreign fishing vessels operating in Indonesian waters that it says rob the local industry of as much as $25 billion a year in lost catches (KKP, 2014b). The same report indicates that the ministry has been fighting against IUU fishing intensively under the new government.

Based on Indonesian central Government Law No. 31/2004 and Law No. 45/2009, fishermen in Indonesia are required to have license for their vessel and for themselves to

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identify that they are fishermen (DPR, 2009). Although the available data could be helpful to control the IUU, the government does not utilize that information. IUU fishing and overfishing issues could also be potentially solved by using the way of thinking of the previously mentioned automatic catchable index. Specifically, technology transference and introducing sensor network aided ICT device to the fishing vessels. Most of the fishermen in Indonesia is categorized as small scale fishermen, and therefore, by making microCube (Wada et al., 2008) for marine traffic monitoring system for small scale vessels (Taka et al., 2013) to track domestic fishermen could be very helpful. Nowadays, the price of a Global positioning System (GPS) device is getting cheaper, hence, the author proposes to make the provision of ICT aided sensor network platform, such as a low cost phone with GPS function as a network sensor, to be installed on each vessel.

GPS provides the vessel’ location data and the USIM card has a function to transmit the location data in real-time as well as to give a unique ID to each vessel so it can be monitored by both of local and central government. By conducting such kind of work, marine traffic for small scale vessels can be monitored systematically.

On the other hand, with the fact is that there is no appropriate database for fish stock and fishing vessels in Indonesia, it is difficult to say whether overfishing has occurred or not. Here, the diary system to record their catch for the national database could be utilized.

Fish stock can be estimated automatically by combining marine traffic monitoring system and digital diary through a resource stock index. As noted above, the catch records have

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been reported periodically by each KUB to the local government in a paper based data format. Those data should be utilized to build fish stock database. Next, the person in charge of database in the local government level should convert the paper based catch record into a digital form and further report it to the central government to build national database. The other way to gather the catch record is by applying digital diary system (Wada et al., 2012). For example, if every fishing vessel is provided with low cost phone that with GPS function, the device will be allowed to record location data but also allowed to gather the catch record. The benefit of using a digital diary is that the data is already in a digital form so it will save cost, time and effort.

The suggestion to solve the IUU and overfishing issues in Indonesia is explained as follows. First of all, the provision of sensor network to the vessels is important. The installation of the device could be gradually provided during the fishermen’s vessel and fishing license renewal because they must renew the license periodically. Figure 4.5 shows the diagram of automatic real-time data collection and transference to support Indonesian fishery. The way this scheme works is similar to the one in Chapter 2. The sensor network platform is automatically transmit location data periodically to database server when the engine of the vessel is on. Therefore, the government can monitor local vessels through the Internet. By doing so, it will be useful to track the IUU fishing and to distinguish domestics and foreign fishing vessels along with the legal and illegal ones.

Another thing that needs to be obtained is the catch data to build a national and regional

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Figure 4.5. Diagram of the real-time data collection and transferring scheme to solve IUU and overfishing issues in Indonesia.

fish stock database. After gathering the catch record, automatic resource stock index might be applied. As a result, the risk of overfishing could be determined.

The proposed scheme is in accordance with government policy plan, namely to build a reliable database of fishing vessel and fish stock. However, it is difficult to be immediately applied in Indonesia, nonetheless, it could potentially be helpful to support Indonesian fishery to reduce IUU and prevent overfishing.